Thread: Animal expert worries that birds won’t be able to fly over the border wall

Actually, I have always doubted the efficacy or need for a fence, but if they are going to do it - do it, but back it up with personnel.

It will have an effect on people who live on the border - ranchers, anyone. You have a river that you have lived with all you life, and suddenly it is going to be walled off from you.

So, does that mean we are giving the Rio Grande to Mexico - it seems it would.

Also, I remember the fence they promised during the Bush administration was proposed, in some places, to be inland as much as 2 - 3 miles.

When discussing it, they admitted some people would actually be walled off from their own country. The answer was to put a 'gate' with a touchkey pad so the people could come and go.

Now think about that one a while. How many are going to be hurt when the drug dealers and illegals demand to know the code?

I think we should put people on the border now, enforce our laws on the interior - and who knows we may not need a fence.

Oh, I think bats and birds can fly over the fence. Yes, they spend a lot of time on the ground, but they move from place to place by flying there. Somehow I don't think that is a great problem. I'm going by the many birds in my back yard who hop around and feed - then fly to the top of a huge, old oak tree.

Bats fly very high in the evenings around here as well.

The smaller mammals, maybe, I'll have to think about that.

I think we should put people on the border now, enforce our laws on the interior - and who knows we may not need a fence.

Yes, hire 40,000 good solid Americans and put them on the border. It cost $2 Billion for their salaries and benefits a year, plus some additional for equipment and some supervision, say $1 billion, for $3 billion a year, try it out and see if it works. This force would be in addition to our existing Border Patrol plus the additional BP Agents and ICE Agents that have been requested. It's worth a try. Americans need the job, so many would consider this a service to their country plus a way to find work until something else opens up if they want to change in 2 or 3 years, that's fine.

I say give it a try for awhile and see what happens. That stops the fights over the wall, the environment, the ranchers, the DemoQuacks, the Budget Wonks, plus it creates over 40,000 new jobs. They work in 6 person teams, they would do a great job. They would become a Team, pals, guarding their mile.

Have National Guard back-up every so many miles with BP doing their regular routes and regular routines.

I think this would work really well.

I call it my Wall of Americans. It's worth presenting to the officials to at least consider. You can hire these 40,000 people in 30 days, it's going to take a long time to build the wall, because it's going to take a long time to get the money.

You know we could stop the draw of employment, freebies, catch and release,etc. That's one of the things that encourages them to come.

In other words, we make it a so easy and so desirable to come. That needs to stop just on general principles but it would also cut back on those coming - possibly.

Originally Posted by Judy

Yes, hire 40,000 good solid Americans and put them on the border. It cost $2 Billion for their salaries and benefits a year, plus some additional for equipment and some supervision, say $1 billion, for $3 billion a year, try it out and see if it works. This force would be in addition to our existing Border Patrol plus the additional BP Agents and ICE Agents that have been requested. It's worth a try. Americans need the job, so many would consider this a service to their country plus a way to find work until something else opens up if they want to change in 2 or 3 years, that's fine.

I say give it a try for awhile and see what happens. That stops the fights over the wall, the environment, the ranchers, the DemoQuacks, the Budget Wonks, plus it creates over 40,000 new jobs. They work in 6 person teams, they would do a great job. They would become a Team, pals, guarding their mile.

Have National Guard back-up every so many miles with BP doing their regular routes and regular routines.

I think this would work really well.

I call it my Wall of Americans. It's worth presenting to the officials to at least consider. You can hire these 40,000 people in 30 days, it's going to take a long time to build the wall, because it's going to take a long time to get the money.

The Case for the Border Fence

By: Daniel Horowitz | August 25th, 2015

Yes, border fences work. And that is exactly why the political class is so stridently intent on opposing the construction of a full double-layered fence or any effective barrier at the border.

The bipartisan open borders cartel is all in favor of discussing sundry forms of “border security,” especially if it will afford them the political cover to pass amnesty. But the one tangible form of border security they will never support, and in fact, pull out all stops to prevent, is the completion of the border fence.

"The border fence that conservatives are advocating has worked in San Diego and it has worked in Israel. It will work for much of the rest of the border."

Several weeks ago, Jeb Bush released his amnesty plan. In order to grease the skids for his amnesty proposal, Jeb released a “six point plan” for securing the border. The one thing that is missing, of course, is the competition of the double-layered security fence.

Border Fences Work…Just Look at San Diego and Israel

One of the most pervasive arguments against a border fence is the puerile nursery chant, “show me a 20-foot fence, I’ll show you a 21-foot ladder.” Even 2016 presidential candidate Rick Perry is oft to advance this intellectually dishonest argument. The problem is they can’t show us the 21-foot ladder. The border fence that conservatives are advocating has worked in San Diego and it has worked in Israel. It will work for much of the rest of the border.


For some geographical context, the southwest border with Mexico is roughly 2,000 miles long divided into 9 “sectors” patrolled by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Here is a list of the border sectors and their size, listed from west to east (Pacific Coast to Gulf Coast):

San Diego (60 miles)
El Centro (70 miles)
Yuma (126 miles)
Tucson (262 miles)
El Paso (268 miles)
Big Bend (510 miles of river-front border)
Del Rio (210 miles of river-front and lake-front border)
Laredo (171 river-front miles)
Rio Grande Valley (320 river miles)

Following the first great wave of illegal immigration post 1986 amnesty, which primarily came through the California-Mexico border, Congress passed a bill in 1996 to require construction of a double-layered fence (triple-layer in some places) in the San Diego corridor along the coast. You can see a picture of the fence with razor wire here. By the end of the decade, apprehensions fell by 95% as illegals moved eastward, even though the fence covered only 14 miles of the 60-mile sector. The majority of this border sector, unlike most other areas of the border, also has a tall and solid single-layer fence. While nothing is full-proof, fences clearly work and take much of the pressure of the border patrol to keep up with the flow.



After much foot-dragging from the leftists, in 2006, Congress passed a bill requiring the construction of a 700-mile double-layered fence along five stretches of the border most appropriate for fencing (watered down from the original proposal of 850 miles). As of October 2014, only 36.3 of the 700 miles of double-layered fencing were constructed, as required by the 2006 Secure Fence Act.
You will hear a talking point from the Left that 652 miles of fencing have been completed, but most of those fences are easily penetrable or downright worthless. Roughly 299 miles are covered by simple vehicle barriers, of which more than half are constructed by temporary welding materials that are dilapidated.


Even the 352.7 miles of “pedestrian fencing” is a complete joke in most areas, as you can see from this picture. Many areas with these rudimentary fencing have known breaches that have been exploited by drug smugglers. Smugglers and traffickers routinely cut holes in these rickety fences and barriers large enough to drive vehicles through.


Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Environmental Impact Statement for the Completion of the 14-Mile Border Infrastructure System San Diego, California, July 2003.

Contrast this with the lesser fencing below:
Appendix C: Examples of USBP Border Fencing

Compare that to the 15-foot double-layered fence in the San Diego corridor and you will see why we need that version in other areas of the border. The Department of Homeland Security has gotten away with short-changing the fencing because Congress essentially gutted the Secure Fence Act in 2007, granting the DHS secretary discretion to waive the double-fence requirement and a number of deadlines. Consequently, the success actualized in the Yuma sector was never allowed to take root elsewhere.

The Yuma sector contains most of the remaining double-layer fencing with razor wire, including areas with triple layers and a 75-foot “no man’s land,” and not surprisingly, it has worked. Apprehensions have declined 96% since 2005 – falling from 138,438 to 5,902 in fiscal year 2014. And again, the double-layer fencing in Yuma and San Diego only cover a fraction of the sector. But they also have other areas with solid single-layered fencing. The other border sectors containing a sizable amount of effective single-layer fencing are El Centro and El Paso, and they have seen a dramatic decline in border crossings as well, although they are not as locked down as Yuma.



Imagine if those fences were constructed in the Rio Grande, Laredo, and Tucson sectors? Those sectors have the fewest miles of fencing (aside from the rugged river sectors of Big Bend and Del Rio, which are hard to cross). Not surprisingly, they are the biggest trouble spots.

We don’t need 2,000 miles of double-layered fencing, but 700 miles worth – in conjunction with cheaper, yet sturdy, single-layered fencing in areas more easily controlled by agents and other assets – will get the job done. It will certainly stop mass smuggling and free up the border agents to concentrate on the toughest parts of the border.

"After construction of the fence, a double-layer barrier with a security zone in the middle – similar to the San Diego fence, suicide attacks perpetrated by Arab terrorists declined by well over 90%."

The Israel Paradigm

Nowhere is the case for the double-layered security-style fence more compelling than with the Israel security fence. Between 2000 and 2005, suicide bombers infiltrated Israel almost on a daily basis. Over 1,000 Israelis were killed and countless thousands wounded – the equivalent of 42,000 fatalities and hundreds of thousands wounded in America if extrapolated from the population size. The situation was desperate….until they built their security fence. After construction of the fence, a double-layer barrier with a security zone in the middle – similar to the San Diego fence, suicide attacks perpetrated by Arab terrorists declined by well over 90%.

Saudi Arabia is now taking a page out of Israel’s security plan and is constructing a similar fence along their border with Iraq.

"Illegal immigration, at its root is not a policy problem; it’s a problem of malfeasance in government."

It has been said that no fence can stop the determination of illegal immigrants seeking job prospects or drug running and human trafficking opportunities. But nobody is more determined than Hamas terrorists willing to die for their cause of killing Jews. While nothing is full-proof, the double-layered security barrier stopped the terrorists; it will stop illegal immigration.

A Plain Old Fence Breaks the Political Barriers to Security

More important than the fact that security barriers are the only proven means of stopping infiltrations is that it solves the root of the immigration problem: politics. The crisis with illegal immigration is not some natural disaster that is simply immune to common sense solutions. It has been encouraged and fostered by our government and political-media-corporate class as well as the Mexican government. Illegal immigration is a man-made crisis. It can only be solved with a solution that is out of reach of the insidious saboteurs in government.

Illegal immigration, at its root is not a policy problem; it’s a problem of malfeasance in government. The past few administrations have simply refused to enforce existing law, culminating with this president’s wholesale nullification of immigration laws. Sure, in theory we can secure the border with smart fencing, sensors, drones, and border agents alone. Proponents of open borders point to the fact that the border patrol has tripled over the past two decades, yet have failed to secure the border. But what good are these assets if they are subject to “prosecutorial discretion?” What good are border agents if they are punished for doing their job and are transformed into social workers who manage and help illegal immigrants instead of stopping them?

Last December, the DHS Inspector General released a report showing how the administration misused the funding and assets for drone technology and did not deploy them in all of the areas they were supposed to patrol. It’s literally the fox guarding the henhouse.

An impervious, fixed, plain, dumb, ugly fence solves the core problem. A dumb fence is not smart enough to be manipulated by those who support illegal immigration. It cannot be turned off and regulated. It does not discriminate. It works.

Cost-Benefit of the Border Fence

Will a border fence cost money? Will it look aesthetically unpleasing in some places? Sure, but the cost of illegal immigration on our welfare, education, hospitals, criminal justice system, highway safety, drug violence, and culture is incalculable and infinite. And the sight of dead bodies and drug smugglers is more offensive than a security barrier.

The 245-mile security fence in Israel cost $450 million, averaging $1.8 million per mile. Assuming the completion of our security fence would cost the same amount, the total tab would come in at just under $2 billion. Even if we use higher estimates of 9 million per mile, as estimated by DHS for the cost of the San Diego fence, that would amount to roughly $6 billion for the project.

Now consider the cost savings of each illegal alien inhibited from entering the country. According to a conservative estimate by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, for every illegal alien that returns home (or is prevented from crossing the border), taxpayers save $700,000. That means we would reach the break-even point after preventing just the first 8,500 illegal immigrants from crossing. Moreover, the cost of other assets that don’t work or are manipulated by the political management will surpass the cost of the border fence and having the fence as a force multiplier will decrease the need for other assets.

Ideally, we should not need a full security fence at our southern border. As Moses observed when the Jews were conquering the land of Canaan, the weaker cities were the ones encompassed by a wall while the stronger ones were confident in their prowess for defense. And indeed, if we had a country that actually enforced our laws, cut off the magnets, and held the government of Mexico accountable for their violation of our sovereignty, we wouldn’t need a wall. But we are not a strong country at a political level. In fact, we have a weak and malfeasant governing class. We therefore need a border fence.


- See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/c....LkKc01g2.dpuf

No one is saying the wall won't work. I'm just saying hire some Americans to do the work the wall would do and see if it works better. Are you against my Wall of Americans because you don't want to hire Americans and pay them $20 an hour plus benefits to guard our border?

Originally Posted by Judy

No one is saying the wall won't work. I'm just saying hire some Americans to do the work the wall would do and see if it works better. Are you against my Wall of Americans because you don't want to hire Americans and pay them $20 an hour plus benefits to guard our border?

I'm not against anything that will help secure the border. However, I feel your solution is untenable due to long term cost. Furthermore, as we've seen in the past, manpower needs and mission can change on a whim depending on who is sitting in the White House and Congress. A solid efficient fencing (or wall) system is more permanent in nature and can't be manipulated on a whim. I strongly believe it will take a combination of things to secure our border, i.e., fencing, manpower, sensors, stadium lighting, drones, and high speed roads between a double-layered fencing system. Yes, I'm pretty much describing the system in San Diego. The data proves that style of fencing works. Of course that's why we have so much resistance to it and why the Secure Fence Act of 2006 was basically de-funded by the Democrats.

A solid efficient fencing system is a force multiplier!

You're worried about the long-term cost of securing our border? It's only $3 billion a year, probably less, I think I have too much in the equipment and supervision $1 billion, but wanted to have plenty so they would have everything they need to respond quickly and for those in remote areas to be as comfortable and safe as possible.

I'm not opposed to the wall, but I don't think Congress is going to fund it. Just my feeling at this time. If they were, they would have rapidly added the San Diego and Texas 62 miles to the Supplemental. Maybe they will, but it doesn't look like it.

There is only one jaguar spotted recently, a single border crosser obviously; though there used to be many - w/o this one crossing, you could say the jaguar is extinct in the USA. Another big cat from another area, the Eastern Puma/Cougar is extinct. A few years ago our Fish & Wildlife Services "accidentally" killed Macho B, the only wild jaguar we had left.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/...dden/17339983/
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2010/05/arizona-biologist-pleads-guilty-gets-probation-for-2009-trapping-of-jaguar-macho-b.html

Basic Facts About Mexican Gray Wolves



The Mexican gray wolf is a subspecies of the gray wolf. Commonly referred to as "El lobo," this wolf is gray with light brown fur on its back. Its long legs and sleek body enable it to run fast. Though they once numbered in the thousands, these wolves were wiped out in the U.S. by the mid-1970s, with just a handful existing in zoos. In 1998, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, led by Jamie Rappaport Clark (now president of Defenders of Wildlife), released 11 Mexican gray wolves back into the wild in Arizona. Although their numbers have grown slowly, and they remain the most endangered subspecies of wolf in the world. The goal of the reintroduction program was to restore at least 100 wolves to the wild by 2006, and it will take many more than that before the lobo is safe from extinction. Today there are approximately 97 of these wolves in the wild. Range & Habitat

Mexican gray wolves prefer mountain forests, grasslands and scrublands. They once ranged widely from central Mexico throughout the southwestern U.S. Today, the Mexican wolf has been reintroduced to the Apache National Forest in southeastern Arizona, and may move into the adjacent Gila National Forest in western New Mexico as the population expands. Recently, Mexican wolves have also begun to be reintroduced in Mexico.


The lobo was once “top dog” in the borderlands, and when the wolf population returns to healthy numbers, biologists believe that lobos will restore balance to the Southwest’s ecosystems by keeping deer, elk and javelina—a type of peccary —populations healthy and in check. Wolves strengthen these animals by preying on the old, sick and young, and prevent their populations from growing so numerous that they overgraze and destroy habitat that countless other species depend on.
excerpted
http://www.defenders.org/mexican-gray-wolf/basic-facts

Visit the borderlands, to meet its human communities, see its wild cats, tropical birds, and butterflies, to encounter the mountain peaks and valley wetlands that provide a home for jaguars, frogs, and jackrabbits –
Butterflies pollinate and wonder how high they fly?

Smugglers Gulch - The filling in of Smugglers Gulch has been one of the most massive and expensive border infrastructure projects to date, costing about $21 million per mile. But the greater cost cannot be truly measured. Construction of border wall through this canyon required waiving all protections under the Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, Migratory Bird Treaty and five other federal laws.

If an incoming administration - say someone with the agenda of Pres. Obama or Bush - only maybe worse. Someone with the backing of the media would decide the fence is offensive. It could be gone in a heartbeat.

I can see it now on national TV. Thousands of cheering illegals, other Hispanics, other wrong headed, cheering as our military blows up the wall. Think it can't happen?

It will not be permanent as in 'here for all ages' - it would just depend on the determination of those to destroy it and I can see some politician in the future deciding it needs to be done.

That is why I think we need to enforce our laws. Why hasn't Pres. Trump started investigating employers and making them prove they are hiring legal workers?

Why isn't he comparing 1099's to tax returns?

Why isn't he telling states who get returns of fed gas tax, they must hire only legal workers - and none of his 'only original contractor' that Texas is hiding behind. They should withhold all fed gasoline taxes unless and until the state proves it is hiring only legal workers to work on the projects.

It seems to me there are many things our federal government could be doing that they are not. If we don't fix this problem in this term - we are lost.

If we do not fix our interior problems, the wall will be a joke for the next Obama/Bush type president.

If we do fix our interior problems, the wall will be unnecessary.

artist wrote (excerpt):

Visit the borderlands, to meet its human communities, see its wild cats, tropical birds, and butterflies, to encounter the mountain peaks and valley wetlands that provide a home for jaguars, frogs, and jackrabbits –
Butterflies pollinate and wonder how high they fly?

How many of these animals are actually migratory? Since they don't depend on migration for their survival, they can set up house on either side of the border.